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Nick Broomfield's new documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer is a wispy and tenuous affair; arbitrary and uncomfortably personal at the same time. Broomfield, the stumbly yet sly provocateur who took some loose conspiracy theories and a no-guts-no-glory attitude and made the documentaries Biggie and Tupac and Kurt & Courtney, aims smaller this time, going for something a little closer to home.

Back in 1992, Broomfield filmed Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Wuornos had been convicted and sentenced to death in early 1991 for murdering seven men in Florida. She shot to fame pretty fast for being the first female serial killer of note in the nation's history. The fact that she was a lesbian prostitute who'd been on her own since the age of 13 and claimed to have only killed johns who were trying to rape or kill her only added to the tabloid allure. In the 1992 film, Broomfield documented the attempts of several police officers and Wuornos's mother to make her into a Hollywood development deal, making him oddly empathize with this woman who, although a serial killer, who had been systematically abused and betrayed by pretty much everybody in her life.